“Jefferson wrote the words down — but the Unkechaug kept them alive.”

It’s a piece of history most people have never heard: in 1791, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, traveled to Mastic, Long Island.
He didn’t come for politics or property — he came to listen and learn.

Jefferson met with members of the Unkechaug Nation, who lived along the shores of what’s now the Poospatuck Reservation. He sat down with tribal speakers, asked questions, and wrote down their words — recording Native terms for colors, numbers, and everyday language.

Those pages would later become one of America’s earliest written records of Native vocabulary.
It’s a chapter that rarely appears in history books, but one that says a lot about what this place — and its people — represent.

For Jefferson, this trip was about knowledge. For the Unkechaug, it was another example of sharing culture — something Indigenous people have done for centuries, long before and long after that meeting.

The words Jefferson recorded weren’t just words. They were pieces of identity — sounds that had carried through generations, long before the United States existed.

Today, those same words are being spoken again.
Through language revitalization projects within the Unkechaug and Shinnecock Nations, Native communities are restoring the languages that colonization tried to silence. It’s history coming full circle — the same sounds that Jefferson once wrote down are now being taught, sung, and spoken once more on Long Island.

So when we talk about history, we don’t just talk about what Jefferson wrote.
We talk about what he learned — and what he heard.
Because this story isn’t about a president taking notes; it’s about a Nation still speaking.

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